the yak occidental

This is a bit overdue and here are all the books I read January-March 2023! I'm off to a bit of a slow start, and this quarter has definitely been marked by lacklustre fiction. I really like Emezi's book, but the rest of the fiction picks here were rather dull. The music memoirs - Shine Bright  by Danyel Smith and Stay True   by Hua Hsu were beautiful. You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh Heaven by Mieko Kawakami People Person by Candice Carty-Williams Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop by Danyel Smith The Last Karankawas by Kimberly Garza The Woo-Wo: How I Survived Ice Hockey, Drug Raids, Demons, and my Crazy Chinese Family by Lindsay Wong Stay True: A Memoir by Hua Hsu Self-Portrait with Nothing by Aimee Pokwatka  Ogadinma: Or, Everything Will Be All Right by Ukamaka Olisakwe I have been doing  #Read...

Here is a selection of memorable quotes from Mistress Pat by L.M. Montgomery I read this book on my e-reader so I have locations only, not page numbers :) “The less ye do be belaving the colder life do be." loc 5892 “All the months are friends of mine but apple month is the dearest,” chanted Pat. It was October at Silver Bush and she and Cuddles and Judy picked apples in the New Part of the orchard every afternoon ... loc 5929 [...] there were no trees. It seemed an indecency, like a too naked body. Trees ... to veil and caress and beshadow ... trees to warn you back and beckon you on. Lombardies for statelines ... birches for maiden grace ... maples for friendliness ... spruce and fir for mystery ... poplars to whisper secrets. loc 6017 “It seems to me you’re always too young or too old to do anything you like in this world,” she said scornfully. ...

Painting above: Still Life (1980) by Nora Heysen Spring was a season of madness. The warming air and thawing water brought people to a kind of hysteria that could not be helped. After winter's numbness and isolation, people were suddenly possessed by a great restless longing [...] It caused men to rush across ice in pursuit of something they themselves could not quite see or track, and to fall through the dark fissures of growing in ice as it separated from itself. Women moved out of their homes, headed for another man or town or country. Younger men, powerless against it, shot themselves. p.140 from Solar Storms by Linda Hogan